


sing me, baby, home

by strangetowns



Series: saw your face, heard your name [3]
Category: Lovely Little Losers
Genre: F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6103441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/pseuds/strangetowns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She smiles, and you can feel your whole world shift on its axis.</p><p>“Yes,” you say simply. Her smile turns into a grin, and your life changes, just a little.<br/>-<br/>Day 4 of Lovely Little Femslash Week - Fluff</p>
            </blockquote>





	sing me, baby, home

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively: a series of vignettes chronicling the lives and love of Paige Moth and Chelsey Long.
> 
> Believe it or not, this was supposed to be twice as long and posted months ago, but then life happened, so this is what you get instead. Hope you like it anyway!
> 
> Thank you to [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/) and [boxesfullofthoughts](http://boxesfullofthoughts.tumblr.com/) for the beta'ing. Title is from Odessa's “[Hummed Low](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx-Kx_wwyQ8)”. This fic also features Paige covering the ever-popular "Can't Help Falling In Love", which I sort of self-indulgently imagine to go something like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVsusdrWlKA).

_ I. _

It’s your first lecture of the semester - of university - and if you said your heart didn’t feel like it was about to burst out of your chest, you’d be lying.

Because you decided this morning that crowds and fighting over seats were not things you felt up for dealing with, you show up to the lecture hall exactly nine minutes in advance. There is hardly anyone there yet, so you select your seat carefully – near the front, exactly in the middle – and wait. You already know how you’re going to spend the next ten minutes, and it’s as good a time as any to try to soothe your nerves. You’re not usually so anxious about meeting new people – meeting new people, in fact, is probably one of your favorite things to do – but new places and situations always merit some caution, and you figure university is as good a place as any for more caution.

And then all of your laid-out plans – play on your phone for a few minutes, pull out your notebook two minutes before class starts, wait dutifully for the professor to arrive – more or less crash and burn, when a girl you’ve never met before sits next to you and immediately turns toward you.

“Hey, an early bird too,” the girl says cheerfully as she plops down, bag on her knees. She’s wearing a red sweater and a rainbow-striped skirt, a clashing outfit that somehow still manages to be adorable. “Well, by, like, ten minutes. Still, by uni standards…”

“I mean, I just figure it’s easier, you know?” you say, almost without thinking.

“Right.” She nods sagely. “Who wants to deal with people, right?” She scrunches up her nose, and your heart skips a beat as you think,  _ Oh no, she’s cute. _

“People are fun.” You pause. “You seem pretty fun, for one.”

“Pretty fun,” she repeats. Laughter bubbles into her words. “What a compliment.”

“I don’t even know your name, how am I supposed to compliment you?” you tease. You’re smiling. How are you smiling?

“Oh, that’s pretty important, isn’t it?” She sticks out her hand. “Chelsey. Chelsey Long.”

“Chelsey Long,” you say, trying out the name on your tongue and liking it. You take her hand. “I’m Paige Moth.”

“That’s a cute name.” Your heart skips yet another beat, despite the fact that she wasn’t even technically referring to you. She holds onto your fingers for two seconds longer than is absolutely necessary. You don’t mind in the slightest, and that thought should give you pause, but it doesn’t.

_ You’re cute _ , you almost say.

“I didn’t know names could be cute,” you say instead.

“Well, starting now, they can be.” She winks at you conspiratorially; your heart stutters. “I’ve decided.”

“Your word is law?”

“Of course! Chelsey Long only ever speaks truths.”

“And in third person, apparently,” you say, laughing freely.

“You love it.”

You’ve only known her for three and a half minutes. “I do.”

She smiles at you. It’s the kind of smile, you note with a small shock of realization, that puts the sun and the stars to shame, that actually sort of takes your breath away no matter how silly that sounds. It’s the kind of smile you’re not sure you’ll be able to forget any time soon.

“Class hasn’t even started yet, and I know it won’t be anywhere near as interesting as this conversation,” she says. She is honest to the point of brutality, you note, but it’s not brutal because there is a kindness to the truths she speaks, a gentleness in her voice that intrigues you. It intrigues you that this girl you’ve never met before can be so open about the things she thinks and feels. It makes you want to find out why, and how.

“We should continue it afterward,” you say, trying not to let hesitancy color your voice. “I think I might have some t– “

“Do you want to get coffee with me after class?” Chelsey blurts out, and claps her hand over her mouth.

On an impulse – you aren’t usually one for acting on impulses, your mind is extraordinarily talented at producing second and third and sometimes even fourth thoughts, but you’ve only been talking to this girl for five minutes and you already know you have no need for any of them around her – you reach out and lower her arm down. She looks down at your hand gripping her forearm, stunned, and looks back up at you.

And then she smiles, and you can feel your whole world shift on its axis.

“Yes,” you say simply. Her smile turns into a grin, and your life changes, just a little.

-

_ II. _

Casually dating someone who’s in one of your classes is sort of a strange feeling.

In university, of course, no one really cares, least of all the professor, so you take the liberty to come to class early specifically so you can sit next to Chelsey, and no one glances, and no one whispers. The problem isn’t that other people will judge you – not that you’d really care if they did, at this point, you’ve been so confident in who you are for so long the things that other people might say don’t really have the ability to hurt you anymore – or that it’s for some reason forbidden to interact with your not-quite-but-maybe-possibly-hopefully-getting-there-girlfriend in an academic setting.

The problem is entirely how distracting Chelsey Long really proves to be.

Even on the days where she’s clearly paying attention to the professor, eyes darting from notes to the board and back again, almost unnaturally focused, it’s a problem for you. How can you be expected to ignore the pretty girl next to you who smells so nice? Who bites her lip so adorably in the midst of conversation, whose eyes crinkle when she laughs openly at some dry joke their professor quips, who wears a shade of lipgloss that looks astonishingly good with her skin tone? So maybe you’re a little weak. You’re not afraid to admit that to yourself, as long as it means you still get to look at her.

The thing is, though, some days she doesn’t pay attention to the professor. Some days, she pays attention to you. And that is even more distracting than it should be.

She knocks her knee against yours often, not enough to arouse suspicion but enough to let you know she’s aware you exist. She giggles softly under her breath at jokes only you can hear, and it hurts your stomach when you try to hold your laughter in. She doodles in the margins of your paper, and about a month into the semester there are probably more Chelsey doodles than there are actual notes in your notebook.

“If I fail the first exam, I’m totally blaming it on you,” you say with a stretch as you leave the lecture hall. Walking to Boyet’s after class – your last lecture of the day, for the both of you – has become a bit of a ritual, never mind the fact that real couples have rituals, and you don’t know quite yet if you’re a real couple. You go for coffee every week. Every weekend, you go out together, to the movies or to some hole-in-the-wall bar that turns out to be the one exception to your informal “no clubs” rule. She holds your hand when you walk down the street. When she hugs you, she doesn’t let go sometimes for whole minutes, and you don’t want her to let go, either. You know for a fact that neither of you are seeing anyone else. Yet it’s still just casual dating, right? You haven’t used the big G word yet. The thought is more intimidating than it should be.

“Whatever could you possibly mean?” Chelsey says, batting her eyelashes at you.

“Have you seen my notes lately?” You shake your head, trying and failing to fight back a smile. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Paige Moth, I resent the accusation that I am anything but the most brilliant and helpful and gorgeous of study partners,” Chelsey says, hooking her fingers through yours.

Almost instinctively, you tighten your hand around hers. “You are pretty gorgeous.”

“That’s more like it.” She presses herself closer to you. It shouldn’t have any bearing whatsoever on your core temperature, but you feel warmer anyway.

“Helpful is really not the word I’d use, though,” you continue on, pretending you didn’t hear a word of what she said.

She gasps loudly. “Rude!”

Impulsively – there’s been a lot of that around her, lately; it’s almost like she has her own gravity, and you can’t help but be pulled in by it – you kiss her on the cheek. “I don’t mean it. Mostly.”

A giggle bursts through her lips. “I forgive you. But only because you’re so adorable.”

Your heart kicks in your chest. “ _ You’re _ adorable.”

“That only works with insults, babe.”

You stick your tongue out at her. “I do what I want.”

“Of course you do.” She squeezes at your hand. “Oh, by the way, after Boyet’s, I need to go back to the flat real quick, if that’s fine? You should tag along, if you want. You haven’t been to my place, have you? I already told my flatmates my girlfriend will probably show up with me sooner or later, so at least they’ll be expecting you – “

“Wait,” you say, stopping in your tracks. “Girlfriend?”

“Yeah, silly,” Chelsey says with a laugh. “What else would you be?”

“I just – “ Your thoughts race as fast as your heartbeat. “We haven’t really talked about it – “

“Oh.” Her face falls, and your insides fall with it. “Well, I mean, if you don’t want to – “

“No!” Oh god, what have you  _ done _ ? “No, no, I mean – Chelsey Long, will you be my girlfriend?”

She stares at you for another second, wide-eyed. Oh god, you’ve screwed it all up, you just know it. You got everything wrong, and then when you tried to fix it you went too fast. She’s going to say no, and then she’s never going to want to see you again, and you’ll basically have broken up before you even started -

And then she bursts out laughing.

“Paige Moth,” she says, “You are the most ridiculous human being alive.”

Your pulse roars in your ears. “So - “

“Of  _ course _ ,” she says, and she reaches out to cup your cheek with her hand. The motion inside your head stills.

And then she pulls you down the street by the hand, and this time her smile doesn’t fade away, and you feel like you should know how to fly, or how to shift whole galaxies; you feel  _ invincible _ .

-

_ III. _

You invite Chelsey to your first open mic night about a month after you first met her.

Playing music in front of other people, usually, makes you a little nervous, but not to the point where you dread going on stage. And you don’t tonight, but as you wait for your turn, holding your ukulele on your lap, your hands tremble on the strings, and you will yourself not to think about all the ways you can mess up in front of her.

The thing is, you can mess up in front of anyone else, and it’ll be fine. You’ll even find it funny. But she’s not anyone else. She  _ matters _ .

They call you up, and you sit on the stool, praying silently that you don’t forget the chords. Your breath shudders into the microphone.

“I’ll be doing a little cover for you all tonight,” you say. You resist the urge to wince at all the tremors you can hear in your voice. “It’s called ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’. You might know it.”

Your eyes catch on Chelsey’s, who sits near the front. It’s too dark to see her face.

You take a deep breath, then another. Your fingers strum across the chords. There is, of course, only one person you could possibly be thinking about right now, and some part of you hopes she knows it.

“Wise men say only fools rush in…”

You’ve only known her for a month, but if that’s too fast, then you’re glad to call yourself a fool.

“But I can’t help falling in love with you.”

The performance goes, surprisingly enough for how badly your hands had been shaking beforehand, almost perfectly. Chelsey claps the hardest of all. You still can’t see her face.

She comes to you almost immediately after you get off the stage. “I know you said you sang,” she says without preamble, clasping your hand between both of hers. Her eyes are bright, even in the dim lighting. “But I didn’t know you  _ sang _ .”

“Really?” You laugh awkwardly. “I’m glad you liked that, I know it was a bit cheesy, but…”

She shakes her head vigorously. “Liked it? Paige, I  _ loved _ it. You’re a natural on stage.”

Something flutters in your stomach, delicate and swooping. “Thanks.”

“Own it, babes,” she says happily, and links your arms together. “Come on, walk me out.”

When you walk out of the coffeehouse, though, it is to the insistent pattering of rain against the pavement.

“Oh no,” Chelsey says mournfully, squinting at the greying sky. “I don’t have an umbrella.”

“I do,” you say. There is more confidence in your voice than there should be. “I’ll walk you home.”

“Are you sure?” She glances toward you, wide-eyed. “I know you live in the opposite direction from me…”

“Trust me,” you say, grinning. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

You take out your umbrella. It’s a bit small, but if you wrap your arm around her and press her close, you can just cover your heads and shoulders. She grabs your hands wrapped around the handles, squeezing your cold knuckles, and you let her.

“This is kind of cute,” she says as you start walking. “It’s like a movie or something.”

“In the movies, I’m pretty sure their shoes didn’t get this wet,” you comment.

“Cold toes are pretty unromantic,” she says thoughtfully.

“ _ You’re _ pretty unromantic.”

“How rude!” She laughs anyway.

The laughter fades away to silence. You walk. There is the sound of rain, a gentle rhythm against the umbrella, and the sound of your thoughts. It’s quiet, but not loud. The whole world seems deep in thought.

She hums.

“Wait, is that…” You frown in concentration. “That’s literally the song I was just playing.”

“It’s a nice song,” she says.

“ _ You’re _ a nice song.”

“Wow, thanks.” She smiles. “I was thinking, though…”

You shift your hands under hers, just slightly. “What is it?”

“Did you – “

She stops midsentence and midstep. You turn to her, mildly alarmed, and her face is much closer than you had bargained for. You can see the creases under her eyes and her lightly chapped lips and the mascara on her lashes. You can see the whole world in her gaze. Your breath hitches in your throat.

“You did,” she says, and her voice is so full of wonder, of amazement, of – of  _ something _ . Though the world is cold, her breath is warm against your face. “You did mean it.”

“Mean what?” you say faintly, pretending at ignorance.

“The song,” she says, hushed. It’s the quietest you’ve ever heard her.

“Oh,” you say stupidly.

She squeezes your hands again. Her fingers are cold and stained with rain droplets, and your skin tingles.

“I mean it too,” she says.

“Mean what?”

Her face changes, then, melts into a radiant, heartstopping smile. It warms your heart like the sun.

And she leans in, and she kisses you.

The rain falls on, and the world is still.

When she pulls away, she presses her forehead to yours, and smiles, quietly. For a whole moment, it doesn’t occur to you that anything could exist outside of now.

“I love you,” she says.

This isn’t a movie, you think. This is so much better.

-

_ IV. _

One week before you move in together, your phone vibrates at midnight.

“Chels?” you say when you pick up.

“Hi.” A pause. “I missed your voice.”

“You saw me just a few hours ago,” you say, smiling to yourself.

“That’s still too long!”

“Yeah,” you say. “I know.”

“This sucks,” she says frankly. “Being in different houses and different beds at night.”

“It’s what we’ve always done,” you remind her gently.

“I know. But it’s still wrong.”

“Soon,” you say.

“Just a few more days, now.” You can practically hear the grin in her voice. “Until we’re living together.”

“Soon,” you sigh.

“Paige?”

“Chels?”

“I love you,” she says.

How long has she been saying those words to you? Months, now? Almost a year? Every time, your heart soars just as high as it did the first.

“I love you too,” you say. You could be flying right now; your lungs would still feel the same.

“Good night, Paige,” she says. “Sleep lots and lots.”

You giggle. “Good night, you nerd.”

“I’m going to miss you as soon as I hang up.” There it is again, that honesty you love so much. She says the things she thinks, and it makes you brave; it makes you want to be brave too.

“I already miss you,” you answer. It’s all you need to say. You know she gets the rest.

You hang up shortly after that, and Chelsey was right. The silence at night is so much easier to bear when you have her to face it with.

It’s only a few days, but they crawl by like days have never passed by before. Every night, she calls you, and every night, she says, “It’s just a few more days, now.”

And you believe her.

The day of is, all at once, exciting and scary. You meet Chelsey at Boyet’s, and you can tell that you’re both feeling too much to talk about it out loud. She takes your hand across the table and holds on tight.

You walk to the flat together and meet with the landlord. The conversation takes longer than you anticipated, but with the anticipation buzzing in your veins he finally hands you the keys. With shaking hands, you open the door to your new flat, and it’s small, and it has big windows, and it’s yours, and it’s perfect.

You kiss her in front of the window. You taste the divine on her lips, the unknowable. You kiss her again and again, and the way she makes you feel is like a new song.

Moving in turns out to be a giant hassle, but you bring friends over to help, and you play loud music and take frequent dance breaks. You and Chelsey pool your money to pay for pizza for everyone, and there’s so much laughter it makes your head dizzy. Once it’s all over and everyone else is out, you fall onto the couch, exhausted. She curls automatically into your side.

“That was so much work,” she says, groaning dramatically into your shoulder.

“Worth it,” you say. And it was, every single second of it. Back when you’d been picking furniture and decorations, you’d done it all together, and it shows - the kitten and indie rock band posters on the walls of the living room, the cushions in varying shades of red and rainbow that somehow manage not to clash, the sunflowers and daisies sharing the same vases scattered all over the place. There is you and her written into every inch of this place, and the thought is enough to make you dizzy with feeling.

“It’s ours,” she says, looking around in awe. “I can’t believe it’s ours.”

You turn her face to yours and kiss her, softly, on the lips. “It’s going to be a great year.”

“It’s going to be a great forever,” she says, and she sounds so sure of herself you believe her wholeheartedly.

Then she takes your hand and pulls you to bed, laughing all the way, and you let her. You will always let her.

You wake up sometime around eight. The morning stretches itself across the sky in hazy orange streaks and wisps of clouds. It takes its time to come, and you are grateful. Lazy seconds in the morning are good seconds, especially when compared to the ones that pass you by in a breathless blur during the day. You can’t stay in bed forever, though. There’s school, and there’s work, and there’s music and there’s Chelsey.

Chelsey stirs against your side, strands of her hair brushing against your chin. You turn over and wait until she’s opened her eyes, half-lidded. Almost like an instinct, her arms wrap around your middle, and the way your faces tilt when you lean in to kiss her reminds you that you’ve always thought of gravity as an inevitability.

“Wake up, sleepy,” you whisper against her lips, and she meets your mouth with a clumsy giggle. She pulls away and rests her forehead against yours, her eyes bright and smiling. Her hands curl into yours. It looks like she’s about to say something romantic, so you wait, smiling softly in anticipation.

“Your breath smells,” she says, wrinkling her nose. You kick her under the blankets, laughing when she squeals about how cold your toes are, and you think it probably doesn’t get much better than this, waking up next to someone you can share the morning light with.

-

_ EPILOGUE _

On your way back to the flat from class one day, a stray cat, white and black patches all over, rudely walks into your path.

“Oh my gosh!” Chelsey squeals, and kneels down. The cat takes to her immediately, nudging against her palm and meowling contently, if cats are capable of sounding content.

“She doesn’t have a collar,” you say, concerned.

Chelsey looks up at you, her eyes shining.

How can you say no when she asks her questions like that?

“Let’s take her to the vet’s tomorrow morning,” you say, nodding decisively. “First thing.”

“Yes!” She jumps up and wraps her arms around you. The cat looks at the both of you bemusedly, but it doesn’t run away, which ought to be a plus. Chelsey turns back to the cat and bundles it in her arms. Amazingly enough, the cat does not protest, only purrs. You can’t blame the cat for falling for Chelsey so fast. After all, it certainly isn’t the first time it’s happened.

“You should name her,” you say, knocking your shoulder into hers gently. “Finders keepers.”

“Joy,” she says, no hesitation.

“Oh?” That was awfully quick. “Why’s that?”

“It’s what I’m feeling right now,” she says, and when she turns back to you, she smiles, slow and steady. You will probably never get used to the way that smile rocks your world.

It’s what you feel too, isn’t it? It’s what you’ve felt ever since you met her, ever since you kissed her, ever since you moved in together. Sometimes you argue, like all couples do, and some days you have to spend apart, like all couples must. But not a single day has gone by when you haven’t loved her with every ounce of your heart, and you have never, not once, regretted it.

“Good,” you say, and you kiss her on the cheek, and you walk all the way home, back to the rest of forever.


End file.
